Waiting for location permission...

Broadcast and play with friends

Waiting for location permission...

This site uses Cookies for basic functionality for visitors who have accounts with us. Also, our trusted and reputable third party advertisers use cookies to determine which ads to serve.

We care a lot about your privacy and making sure that your experience on this site is a safe one, and in that effort we store as little information as possible. You can read more about that in our 2018 GDPR statement here.

Please accept our terms of use which can be found here. If you have any questions, or you do not agree and would like us to opt you out, please contact us using the contact form.

2 weeks ago

Here is what I do:

37 cards in the manabase (this includes up to three 1-drops and up to one 2-drops)
~8 cards that draw cards
~8 cards that ramp
~5 cards that board wipe all creatures
~3 cards that can remove creatures at instant speed for 3 mana or less
~3 cards that can remove all artifacts or able to remove an artifact/enchantment
~3 cards of some other staple effect, like anti-tutor, multicolored-hosers, and/or anti-control, like Stranglehold, Blood Moon, and Conqueror's Flail
up to 4 categories of at least 8 cards each that work with your commander

2 weeks ago

So for the first thing on the agenda, I would like to formally apologize for my absence from this deck (and magic in general for that matter). Life has been keeping me busy with school ending a couple of months ago (I know, summer is almost over), but with the end of school, work then began to arise and it just became very hard to stay active on tapped out and find time to actually build any decks (especially this one in particular). With that being said, I am back once again to build, formulate, test, and build again.

Second lets begin with a thank you to TailoredBacon for trying to answer Vlasiax's question in my absence, I really do appreciate it and love having input being discussed here to help improve everyone's The Ur-Dragon Deck. So now it is my turn to actually provide some input on the question as well :D and this will bring us to the 3rd topic.

Vlasiax: I have been using Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury, Ojutai, Soul of Winter, and Wasitora, Nekoru Queen mostly because they either fill a couple of rolls, or they are just strictly better than other dragons. Kolaghan will help provide extra damage when needed and if you have an army, the power will quickly grow out of control, but you are right, alone she does slightly under preform and it is very possible that you might not ever get to that army of dragons and might end up on the cutting block due to her cost and what she does, as she has no board impact right away. As for Ojutai, Soul of Winter, I have found that he will help lock down or slow down opponents that could very well grow out of control. Gilded Lotus is playing in almost every deck in my playgroup and tapping it down could help (but most of my group have ways of untapping it multiple times in a turn or other ways around it), so Ojutai is not bad, but for 7 mana, there might be something better. He lacks impact on the board upon entering and must attack to get his trigger, which if you have multiple dragons attacking, can be amazing, but if you don't, then he is more of a nuisance than anything. Wasitora, Nekoru Queen is probably out of all of the dragons you have mentioned, would be the one I keep, solely because of the Sac creature affect and strength it has on deck like Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, Captain Sissay, or other commander decks that rely so heavily on the commander. Though once again, I have found that she does get removed rather quickly as people don't want to lose their commander. She also shares the common problem with the other two and it is that she doesn't impact the board when she is played and is just a creature that people are like "okay, got to get rid of it by next turn so we don't sac anything". Turns out, dragons are threatening, but when dolled out one by one, people tend to just remove them before they become a problem. Which this brings us to your second question about hate.

YES!!!!! It does bring hate as people are going to remove your dragons before they can do anything. This is short and simple, if you play a 6 mana dragon, that will be removed to the infamous one mana Path of Exile, then yes, they are going to do it. I have found that counterspells aren't as big of a problem as one might imagine, but they are there and having Cavern of Souls does help, but I have considered alternate means. I just saw Conqueror's Flail tonight, and holy crap. A card that will more than likely give +5/+5 (because we are 5 color) and it has a Grand Abolisher like affect, I will take 10 please. Steely Resolve is another that I will probably try to find room for. I do not know if I want Taigam, Ojutai Master, or Surrak Dragonclaw, just because of their mana costs. Surrak is more tempting because it gives all your creatures trample, and makes everything uncounterable. So he is tempting, but really unsure right now. Requires play testing!!! So we should always look for ways to protect our dragons, but we must keep it cheap in cost if at all possible. If we can ramp out cheap spells that protect our dragons, while being able to dull out dragons, that would be ideal.

Last point, the planeswalkers. Oh boy, the planeswalkers. What can I saw, flavor wise, I love both Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh and they are both very powerful, but they are very expensive and if I had the choice, I would probably only keep Ugin, and that itself is a maybe right now. The Sarkhans are another thing. Sarkhan Unbroken on paper looks like he should be in this deck 100% of the time, but in reality, I don't think so. He is 5 mana for a very kill able mana rock that draws you one card, maybe two is a full turn rotation happens. Plus the ult, strikes fear into the hearts of your enemies and paints a very large target straight on his forehead. He will be killed, it is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when, and it will be very soon after he is played. Now if you play Doubling Season with him, then by all means, ult him right away and live the dream, then tell me how it was because it sounds glorious. Sarkhan the Mad is one that I have thought about, but ultimately, have left out because he will be a 5 mana draw a card once or twice, or make a 5/5 dragon that could have just been played for the 5 mana from the start. His ult seems really cool, but requires a lot of dragons to do this. If I had to have a planeswalker, and really, I want to use this guy, it would have to be the new Sarkhan, Fireblood. He is a 3 mana ramp spell for dragons that can either ramp or loot a card, which he will more than likely loot on his first turn he is out. Second, because his abilities are just helping with ramp or looting and his ult only makes four 5/5 dragon tokens, which isn't as scary as pull every dragon out of the deck onto the field, so he does not receive as much hate as Sarkhan Unbroken. I think this also might be the only planeswalker I run just because he is cheap and is exactly what I want. Though Dack Fayden is very tempting as he can also ramp with artifact stealing.

Okay, now for my final set of words for the night. This was a lot to think about and type, but it is what we are here for to help discuss and further advance ones ideas. This being said, for the months that I have been playing magic, I have been playing a Storm Grixis deck, a competitive Sidisi, Brood Tyrant deck, and even a Marwyn, the Nurturer commander deck. All of the experience and ideas from these decks will help build and form a new and improved The Ur-Dragon deck. One that will help push the deck to its very limits. Also the M19 and Commander 2018 has some awesome stuff for this deck and I look forward to improving the deck with all the fun things found in these sets. A 3 mana Nicol Bolas, the RavagerFlip that does impact the board straight away by discarding a card from all of our opponents and is a 4/4 flyer that can become a planeswalker in the later end of the game. Sold and I already have my Foil Prerelease Nicol Bolas for the deck. So with all of this, you guys can expect to see a new form of The Ur-Dragon Initiative in the coming month or two. Hopefully it is sooner, rather than later, but time must allow for research. I thank you all for listening, reading, and just enjoying the deck overall. Glad to see that it has remained high up on the ranks of the other The Ur-Dragon decks even with my absence and I hope everybody will continue to support The Ur-Dragon Initiative. Have a great night and may your sealed pulls and your commander games be great. Bye Bye!!!!!!

4 weeks ago

any over performers you are finding in this deck in your play? the deck is very different then my list and it seems to have more scattered win cons where mine is pretty one dimensional (though i love that about mine). have you tried Mentor of the Meek, Regal Force? I love those in my decks, they tend to be super good. additionally I find Dragonlord Dromoka and Conqueror's Flail to be fantastic due to thier Grand Abolisher like effects. they tend to enable hard to stop wins.

1 month ago

@Profet93, do I know you? Cause that very last thing you said, Only people who personally know me would say things like that lol. Anyway you make a lot of good points. Now the thing about those cards are they make a great reset button for when things get out of hand or go wrong. Like Tainted Remedy would destroy me. So i need at least one way to deal with those kind of things. I like all the land suggestions. And the Conqueror's Flail. All suggestions will be considered. I own most of those cards so I can give then a trial and error and see if they are a good fit.. but those lands it's gonna go in for sure. Cabal Stronghold just isn't strong enough.

1 month ago

I recommend adding Vesuva and Thespian's Stage to copy coffers. This shouldnt affect cabal stronghold too much. I know you don't want to remove too many swamps, its very much worth adding these 2, I cannot speak highly enough of them. A flexible mana base, ESPECIALLY in mono black where urborg helps with colorfixing is HIGHLY worth it. Speaking of strongholds, Volrath's Stronghold is useful as well. Mirage Mirror is versatile tility and can copy coffers too!

Corpse Dance could be fun, recur top creature, sac is to commander. Repeatable for 5 mana seems good.

My black deck also is weak to counterspells, as my main (though I do have other options) wincon is a large X spell. You might want to consider Conqueror's Flail or maybe even Boseiju, Who Shelters All. Other people mentioned mana web and the defense grid. I recommend either one or the other, not both. Mana web works well with urborg but doesnt take into account mana dorks/rocks. Defense grid's benefits were explained by a previous user who summed it up quite well. The choice is yours. Additionally, hand disruption is useful in general and will force a blue player to use a counterspell. A great example of this is Mind Twist.

Inanity, have you had any success stories with your build? What seems to be working? I keep hearing that I “NEED” to build Chromium, the Mutable as control/stax, first, and any other flavor to be secondary choice. But I’m such an aggro player at heart, it only made sense to me, to have a Voltron build. I love the heavy aura approach. It’s so much fun!

Magic the Gathering, FNM is TM and copyright Wizards of the Coast, Inc, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This site is unaffiliated. Articles and comments are user-submitted and do not represent official endorsements of this site.